Later on today, Google will be unveiling it's own service to allow online payments on sites around the web. Although Google doesn't view the service as a direct competitor with PayPal, internet market analyst Greg Sterling believes there is no question that it poses a long term threat to eBay. The payment service, known as "Checkout" has been in testing for around a year, and companies such as Starbucks Corp and Buy.com have already signed up to be amongst the first users of the service when it is released.

Merchants using the "Checkout" product, along with advertising from the search giant, will receive discount on processing fees based on the amount spent on advertising through the company. Merchants won't have to pay processing fees on purchases totaling 10 times their advertising volume with Google. That means an advertiser spending $20,000 per month at Google wouldn't pay any processing fees on purchases totaling $200,000. After the spending threshold is exceeded, Google will charge merchants a fee equal to 2 percent of the purchase amount, plus 20 cents per transaction.

Note: It's really up now. Go to the link and you can start filling in your credit card information. You can also check out this Video Tour.

Note 2: At this time, only merchants with a U.S. address and bank account can process transactions through Google Checkout.